Gilead Sciences experimental antiviral drug failed to help patients with severe COVID-19 in a clinical trial conducted in China, but the drugmaker said the findings were inconclusive because the study was terminated early.
There are currently no approved treatments or preventive vaccines for COVID-19, and doctors are desperate for anything that might alter the course of the disease that attacks the lungs and can shut down other organs in extremely severe cases.
In the Chinese trial remdesivir, given by intravenous infusion, failed to improve patients’ condition or reduce the pathogen’s presence in the bloodstream, according to draft documents published accidentally by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“It’s still not that large of a study and therefore the statistics coming out of the trial aren’t exactly robust,” Mizuho analyst Salim Syed said in a research note.
“The study results are inconclusive, though trends in the data suggest a potential benefit for remdesivir, particularly among patients treated early in disease,” the company said without providing details to back up that assertion.
A separate trial in China testing the drug in patients with more moderate symptoms last week was also suspended due to a lack of eligible patients.